ACT 2 QUICK RUSH GUIDE

Welcome.
I decided to write this guide because it appears not so many players are actually aware of that method.
Basically, it allows to entirely skip far oasis and maggot's lair.
That's significant if you ask me, especially if you rush often.
I hope it'll be of use to some of you =]

CONCEPT

The main idea is to rely on what are called "duriel mules", so that the chamber is already open when performing the rush.
Duriel mules aren't something new, they're already mentioned on several web sites.
However, those sites state that you need to build a new duriel mule before each rush, which isn't exactly interesting.
Fortunately for us, there's a way to create permanent duriel mules, that you only need to build once.

BUILDING A PERMANENT DURIEL MULE

You'll need a second character to rush the mule.

The mule creates a new game, the rusher joins.
The mule completes its act 1, and travels to act 2.
The mule retrieves the cube.
The mule retrieves the staff.
The mule breaks the altar and retrieves the amulet.
The mule transmutes the staff and the amulet.
The mule talks to drognan.
The mule stays in town, while the rusher kills the summoner.
The mule clicks on the journal, and enters the canyon.
The rusher escorts the mule (on foot) from the canyon to the orifice.
The mule opens duriel's chamber.

That's it, the mule is ready, and will allow quick rushes for that difficulty.
The escort part sounds boring, i know, but remember that's a long term investment.
If you want to be able to quick rush all 3 difficulties, you'll obviously need to build 3 separate mules.

USING A DURIEL MULE TO QUICK RUSH

The rushed creates a new game, the rusher joins.
The rushed completes its act 1, and travels to act 2.
The rushed breaks the altar (no need the amulet).
The rushed talks to cain.
The mule creates a new game for that difficulty, the rushed joins, the mule leaves, the rusher joins.
The rusher kills the summoner, while the rushed is near enough, as usual.
The rushed talks to cain.
The rushed stays in town, while the rusher kills duriel.
The rushed talks to tyrael, jerhyn, meshif, and travels to act 3.

NOTES

Due to how the method works, the rushed won't have the symbol of the true tomb on his quest 6 log, don't bother asking him.
However, the duriel mule should, if you built it correctly (be sure to check the log in act 2, it's bugged in act 1).
Of course, you can always use the arcane trick to identify the tomb instead.

ALTERNATE DURIEL MULES

There's a way to build different types of mules, that allow the rushed to join the second game right after act 1 is completed.
But they take longer to build and the rush effectiveness is similar, so i won't go into details to avoid any confusion.

This post was edited by xhul on Jun 2 2021 02:47pm

usually, the people who can log 2 characters don't have a problem finding maggot lair

I might be wrong, but i believe if you have 2 simultaneous rushers, it'll be faster to find 2 different spots (viper+arcane) than 3 (maggot+viper+arcane).

This post was edited by xhul on Jun 2 2021 03:45pm

To elaborate on it- the goal of the duriel mule here is to have a character who's duriel quest is unfinished, but staff quest is finished and orifice has been cracked. That means that when he creates a game, the tomb is already open and palace is open and duriel's quest can be finished by other players. So as long as they complete the summoner quest in another game- the same one they rush act 1 as usual- they can simply take a TP to duriel and finish it without doing staff/amulet/drognan

Now, there are as you pointed out many further ways to optimize rushes, both using reusable rush mules characters like this, and also using once-off rush mules that just complete a quest and are used up (or to be recycled as the 'next' quest mule along the line, until they reach the end)
In fact, its possible to create the warp speed 'uber rush' by having a chain of already an already prepped quest mule sitting next to tyrael in act 2 with duriel already dead and andy, trav, meph & diablo all spawned and ready to be killed with 1 hp, and players can be rushed from act 1 to act 4 hell in a classic rush in something like 3 minutes as the limiting factor becomes their ability to walk across each town in a group. And its not even too prohibitive on setup, since each mule can tag along with followbots and be turned into the next difficulty's mule for the next rush.

but

pretty much all this has the very limiting factor of multiple clients / cdkeys, and there are generally better ways you can abuse multi-clients than to waste them on bots that save you 30 seconds in rushes

Thanks for the feedback.


To clarify, the summoner isn't the only TP-blocking quest, the altar also has to be smashed to access arcane, otherwise the rushed has to walk from town to summoner.


Using the method i described, if you have a friend to help you build the 3 mules once and for all, the rushes themselves can be performed with just 1 client.
Also, i didn't particularly share this guide to help bots at all, more like regular humans that don't particularly enjoy losing some time in maggot's lair when they can entirely avoid it.
And yeah, 30 seconds doesn't seem a lot at first, but if you multiply that number by the players rushed at a ladder's start, that becomes a different story.

The time wasted to set up 3 different mules at the start of a ladder exceeds the time saved in week 1 by skipping maggots

If you play ladder to get to the first place, you obviously don't waste too much time rushing people anyway.

I feel like you are undermining your own thread

Here is a quote from my first post.
I put the relevant word in bold, just for you :



This post was edited by xhul on Jun 2 2021 05:45pm

I am referring to your comment about 30 seconds saved at ladder start rushes.

Rushing 3 mules to do staff takes longer than doing staff for the ladder start